Ironically, her tenure at Fox is best remembered for the role she didn’t play — perhaps mindful of her earlier Egyptian fiasco, she turned down what was originally conceived of as a modestly budgeted remake of “Cleopatra.” Later, Collins declined to step into what is still the most expensive movie of all time (when inflation is factored in) after Taylor became ill. Collins gets top billing in only one of the five films in “The Joan Collins Collection,” over Taylor’s future husband and “Cleopatra” co-star Richard Burton, who was also under contract to Fox at the time. The flick is “Sea Wife,” and the two performers share a life raft with two other actors. Burton tries to seduce Collins (as he reportedly did in real life, to no avail), who turns out to be a nun. The not-bad “Sea Wife” was supposed to be directed by Roberto Rossellini but ended up being helmed by the production manager. Collins takes second billing to Ray Milland (pictured with her above) in her first major role for Fox, more typically cast as showgirl Evelyn Nesbit in “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing” (1955). Farley Granger plays her husband, mad industrialist Harry K. Thaw who shoots her lover, architect Sanford White (Milland) in this bowdlerized version of a real-life scandal from the early 20th century, efficiently directed by Richard Fleischer. Other flicks in the set include “Seven Thieves,” a Monte Carlo casino caper (mysteriously filmed in black and white) that in many ways is superior to the original “Ocean’s 11” (released six months later) in which third-billed Collins (after Edward G. Robinson and Rod Steiger) plays a stripper; and “Stopover Tokyo,” a Kyoto-filmed version of a Mr. Moto novel by John P. Marquand that replaces the Japanese detective with Robert Wagner.
From a film buff’s point of view, perhaps the most interesting title in the set, which streets on Tuesday, is Leo McCarey’s penultimate film, “Rally ‘Round the Flag Boys” (1958). Top-billed Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward reportedly lobbied Fox to cast their friend Collins rather than the studio’s original choice, Jayne Mansfield. In her first intentional U.S. comedy, Collins is very funny as a bored suburban wife trying to seduce the sexually frustrated Newman, whose wife Woodward is spearheading a campaign against a planned missile base in their Connecticut town. The uneven and at times overbearing flick is based on a novel by satirist Max Schulman, better remembered for “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.” In fact, the two original stars (Dwayne Hickman and Tuesday Weld) of the TV series based on the latter book have prominent supporting roles in “Rally.” Collins, in real-life, was dating another of the series’ original stars, Warren Beatty. According to Collins’ highly readable memoirs, she encouraged Beatty to drop out after the first season and pursue a movie career. While the set has a nice featurette on Collins and oodles of studio glamour shots, her commentary sorely missed. Fox says she was unavailable.